Plasma display panels, or gas discharge panels, are well known in the art and, in general, comprise a structure including a pair of substrates respectively supporting thereon column and row electrodes each coated with a dielectric layer such as a glass material and disposed in parallel spaced relation to define a gap therebetween in which an ionized gas is sealed. Moreover, the substrates are arranged such that the electrodes are disposed in orthogonal relation to one another thereby defining points of intersection which in turn define discharge cells at which selective discharges may be established to provide a desired storage or display function. It is also known to operate such panels with AC voltages and particularly to provide a write voltage which exceeds the firing voltage at a given discharge point, as defined by a selected column and row electrode, thereby to produce a discharge at a selected cell. The discharge at the selected cell can be continuously "sustained" by applying an alternating sustain voltage (which, by itself is insufficient to initiate a discharge). This technique relies upon the wall charges which are generated on the dielectric layers of the substrates which, in conjunction with the sustain voltage, operate to maintain discharges.
Details of the structure and operation of such gas discharge panels or plasma displays are set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,559,190 issued Jan. 26, 1971 to Donald L. Bitzer, et al.
In the past two decades, AC plasma displays have found widespread use due to their excellent optical qualities and flat panel characteristics. These qualities have made plasma displays a leader in the flat-panel display market. However, plasma panels have gained only a small portion of their potential market because of competition from lower cost CRT products.
The expense of the display electronics, not the display itself, is the most significant cost factor in plasma displays. Because of the matrix addressing schemes used, a separate voltage driver is required for each display electrode. Therefore, a typical 512.times.512 pixel display requires a total of 1024 electronic drivers and connections which add considerable bulk and cost to the final product.
In a co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 787,541 filed Oct. 15, 1985, and assigned to the same assignee as herein, there is described an Independent Sustain and Address (ISA) plasma panel. Also, see the publication L. F. Weber and R. C. Younce, "Independent Sustain And Address Technique For The AC Plasma Display", 1986 Society For Information Display International Symposium Conference Record, pp. 220-223, San Diego, May, 1986. The ISA plasma panel technique includes the addition of an independent address electrode between the sustain electrodes. These address electrodes are then connected to the address drivers. The sustain electrodes can be bused together and connected directly to the sustainers.
The ISA plasma panel offers two significant advantages. First, since the address electrodes do not have to deliver the large sustain current to the discharging pixels, the address drivers have low current requirements. This allows lower cost drivers to be used. The second advantage is that only half the number of address drivers are needed since one address electrode can serve the sustain electrode on either side.
Despite the significant advantages afforded by the ISA panel, it is still desired to reduce as much as possible the manufacturing cost of such panels. However, while the ISA panel has enabled a reduction of the address drivers of a typical 512.times.512 pixel display from 1024 electronic address drivers to only 512 drivers, this is still a significant number of required electronic components. In fact, the plasma panel cost is dominated by the cost of the associated required electronic circuits such as the addressing driver circuits and sustain driver circuits. In addition, it is desired to reduce the amount of energy normally lost in charging and discharging the capacitance of the plasma panel.
It is therefore desired to reduce the cost of plasma panel production by reducing the cost by the associated electronics.
It is also desired to reduce the operational cost of plasma panels.